The U.S. economy grew 2.6 percent at the annual rate in the fourth quarter. For the year, real GDP rose 2.9 percent in 2018, or by 3.1 percent from Q4:2017 to Q4:2018. As such, economic growth last year was the best since 2005, as expected, on a year-over-year basis. In the fourth quarter figures, consumer and business spending were the bright spots, but there were continuing drags in growth from net exports and residential fixed investment.

Moving forward, I forecast 2.4 percent growth for 2019, recognizing that the global economy is softening and there are lingering political uncertainties. With that in mind, policymakers need to build on last year’s momentum by taking action on additional priorities, including approval of the U.S.–Canada–Mexico Agreement, to ensure manufacturers in America can continue to grow and prosper.

The recovery in the stock market and the end of the partial government shutdown have helped boost consumer confidence, according to the Conference Board. That will hopefully boost spending moving forward, but in December, personal consumption expenditures fell 0.5 percent, the first monthly decline since February 2017. With that decrease, the savings rate soared from 6.1 percent in November to 7.6 percent in December, its highest reading since January 2016. January personal spending data were delayed due to the shutdown.

Meanwhile, personal income edged down 0.1 percent in January after rising 1.0 percent in December. On a year-over-year basis, personal income has risen 4.3 percent since January 2018.

The manufacturing data out last week were mixed. On the survey front, activity rebounded among respondents to reports from the Dallas and Richmond Federal Reserve Banks in February after softening in both December and January. Manufacturers in the Kansas City Fed district cited ever-so-slight growth, but at the slowest pace since November 2016. Moving forward, though, all of the regions reported a mostly upbeat assessment of activity over the next six months.

The ISM® Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index® declined from 56.6 in January to 54.2 in February, its lowest point since November 2016, with slower growth for new orders, production and employment. Nonetheless, overall business conditions continue to be favorable, with the sector expanding modestly. Exports improved in February, and prices declined for the second straight month.

In addition, new orders for core capital goods (or nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft)—a proxy for capital spending in the U.S. economy—decreased for the second straight month, continuing to pull back from the all-time high reached in July. However, core capital goods spending has increased by a very modest 2.0 percent over the past 12 months.

New housing starts plummeted to their lowest level since September 2016, down from an annualized 1,214,000 units in November to 1,078,000 units in December. This is consistent with other data showing softness in the housing market, largely due to affordability and workforce issues.

Encouragingly, housing permits—a proxy of future activity—seem to indicate that the December starts data might be an aberration. Indeed, housing permits inched up from 1,322,000 units at the annual rate in November to 1,326,000 units in December, an eight-month high. This rebound will likely be supported by lower mortgage rates seen so far in 2019.

This moderation in the rate of price growth should provide some comfort to the Federal Open Market Committee, as it should allow them the luxury of being less “hawkish” in setting monetary policy over the coming months. Indeed, comments last week from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell and Vice Chair Richard H. Clarida seem to support the view that the FOMC will wait for signs of stronger economic data before hiking interest rates again.

We're considering sponsoring a similar survey focused on small manufacturers - let us know of you'd be interested in participation, getting the results, or have questions you'd like to pose. If so, just email your request.

​ZWDirect today announced that ZWCAD 2019 is released and available for download and purchase at www.zwdirect.com.

ZWCAD 2019 is the culmination of 20 years of ceaseless efforts by ZWSoft to provide state-of-the-art, affordable CAD to worldwide users. Over 900,000 users around the world now own and trust ZWCAD as their preferred solution.

This release is highlighted by numerous productivity- and quality-enhancing new features, an expanded API, increased stability and quality, and faster performance on all sized designs.

The top 30 improvements of ZWCAD 2019 for users of previous ZWCAD versions are listed below. All told, they and the resulting product make an upgrade to ZWCAD 2019 for existing ZWCAD users very compelling. The improvements also place ZWCAD 2019 at functional parity with high-priced CAD solutions – making a move for those users and teams to own ZWCAD also very compelling by offering 75% savings versus forced CAD subscriptions.

ZWCAD 2018 -- "CAD Worth Owning"ZWCAD, already trusted by over 550,00 users worldwide, is emerging as the #1 choice for CAD ownership, largely because it offers:

The most familiar CAD user environment and full compatibility with DWG/DGN

State-of-the-art 2D/3D CAD

A rich API for applications and environments

A lifetime ownership price ($799) equal to about six months of AutoCAD rental.

Newly released ZWCAD 2018, brings even more benefits, including:

A superior CAD engine to ensure the improved .dwg compatibility

Speed improvements of up to 146%

A powerful set of drafting innovations not found elsewhere

An expanded and enriched API now supporting LISP, VBA, ZRX and .NET.

The "Joy of CAD Ownership" is alive and well with ZWCAD 2018!

If you are at a decision point in owning vs. renting your CAD, we think that ZWCAD 2018 is worth serious consideration. We're here to help you evaluate and test your "Joy of CAD Ownership" options for your organization.

We are very excited about ZWCAD 2018 -- it's our highest-performance and most familiar, innovative, and customizable version ever. Most importantly, we hope to help boost your productivity and quality with ZWCAD 2018 very soon!

Customization for entire UI including for tabs/panels/toolbars/menus and support of acad.cuix files

Numerous new features and innovations, including Integrated Calculator for mathematic/scientific/geometric/engineering calculations with sheet measurements and variables

An expanded and enriched API now supporting LISP, VBA, ZRX and .NET interfaces.

Overall, ZWCAD 2018 Now Boasts​​

A familiar UI so no relearning required

Full read/write of DWG/DGN for seamless integration with AutoCAD/MicroStation projects

State-of-the-art 2D/3D features, important innovations, and top performance so users are more productive than ever

A rich API to support your applications and fit your environment

Ownership prices starting at $799 ($999 networked) for superior ROI and long-term control of your business.

On New Dark Theme UI

Daniel Huang, the ZWCAD product manager stated, “Users deserve a fluid and better design experience, so that’s why we provide a brand-new dark theme UI in ZWCAD 2018. The lower brightness and higher contrast of such design can greatly reduce the visual fatigue from long time drafting. We also did lots of modification in the details, for example, the buttons and icons styles and the text height and width, so the whole appearance will present the best visual effect for users.”

​On Speed and Improved Stability Improvements

Charles Zhao, the director of R&D stated, “ZWCAD 2018 use many technologies to improve the efficiency, users will find that frequently used commands and layout switch speed are much faster than before, because we optimize the reactors and memory to trigger under certain situations instead unconditionally.”

Based on increasing demand for ZWCAD in manufacturing, AMC Bridge has developed, in collaboration with PTC, a Windchill Workgroup Manager (WWGM) Adapter for ZWCAD to enable interoperability between PTC Windchill and ZWCAD products. The WWGM Adapter is now fully functional, tested, and available so that manufacturers standardized on Windchill can freely choose ZWCAD 2017 as a high-powered, lower-cost 2D/3D CAD solution available via perpetual license.

AMC Bridge is a global vendor of choice for software development services in CAD, CAE, CAM, PDM, PLM, and other technologies used by manufacturers, engineering firms, automated manufacturing integrators, and construction companies. With over 300 developers and over 16 years, AMC improved engineering process overhead by the development of 3D/2D modeling software products; data, document and community management technologies; CAD data interoperability; 3D printing software; and many other aspects of software development for manufacturing and construction businesses.

ZWSoft, from its headquarters in the Pearl River Tower in downtown Guangzhou, now serves over 550,000 users around the world with high-powered, affordable, open 2D/3D CAD/CAM across the design, manufacturing, and infrastructure industries.

We have moved our headquarter office into the beautiful Pearl River Tower in downtown Guangzhou -- please consider a visit!

For all this progress, we thank our customers, partners, and employees -- it was a total team effort and we appreciate your support! And, given this team, our management, and our strategy, we look forward to even greater progress in 2017 and 2018.

Looking forward to our next chat on our strategy going forward -- our company is very focused and very enthused to increase the success of our growing customer base around the world!

Truman DuCEO, ZWSOFT​

2. ZWCAD 2017 Product Update: Welcoming the 3rd Generation

We're happy to welcome the successful and inspiring arrival of our 3rd generation CAD platform, available as ZWCAD 2017.

In order the make a great product, we started with a great development process:

As always, affordable and available as a perpetual, non-expiring license.

We believe ZWCAD 2017 sets a new milestone for the industry and look forward to making our expanding base of 550,000 existing and new customers extremely successful and satisfied with our 3rd generation CAD platform.

​Truman DuCEO, ZWSOFT

3. A Compelling Future: ZWSoft Strategic Focus and Goals

​ZWSoft has certainly recovered strongly from a challenging past two years -- we've grown by 20%, now serve over 550,000 global users, and have fully modernized our 2D and 3D platforms to propel us and our customers confidently into an exciting future.

Speaking of the future, I'm honored to share our 8 Principles for continuing to grow our company and expand our customer success:

Remain highly-specialized and 100% focused on CAD.

Continue to invest in our people and R&D to offer unique and compelling advantages to our customers.

Be the market leader in product affordability, performance, quality, and openness.

Deliver market-leading functionality in the areas judged most important to users, specifically 2D/3D drafting, 3D modeling, and CAM.

Offer a state-of-the-art API set and integration for other customer priorities, including PDM, Simulation, and PLM.

Seek and execute on smart industry acquisitions to increase our value to customers.

Continue to share our business opportunity and success with global partners.

No doubt, 3D has brought immenseproductivity, quality, and time benefits to CNC manufacturing. In this blog, I'll share that new CAM Automation technology inside ZW3D is the logical next step, can build on those benefits, and can be just as impactful to your business - in fact, I've seen it streamline steps to manufacturing from 36 down to 6.

​Overall, CAM Automation takes advantage of the fact that, with similar parts, the geometry changes slightly but the tools choice and motions don't.

​The CAM Automation technology is based on re-usable CNC manufacturing templates. You start by building a library of part types, generally 6-10 for a shop ranging from a mold/die design to an aluminum cover to a simple quote. You program the templates based on your equipment (cutting speeds/feeds/depth) and experience/success (tool choice, sequencing).

DEMO: CAM Automation for SOLIDWORKS (4 min.)

DEMO: Creating/Using a Template (4 min.)

Then, when it comes time to program a part, rather than creating all the logic from start, you simply choose the template type and it generates the CNC code automatically! And this happens again and again and again -- it's now a optimized, repeatable operation in your business.

​The bottom-line is more money in your pocket thanks for CAM Automation.

In the above videos, I show CAM Automation in action for Solidworks and a template being created and then used to CNC code for an electrode -- I hope it helps to communicate the value of CAM Automation and my enthusiasm for it!

Interested in more?

Feel free to contact me directly to discuss the template types that apply to your business or to demonstrate a set of templates for you.